The 'K-pop system' nurtured in the U.S. paid off: KATSEYE tops the Billboard chart

[Financial News] Global girl group KATSEYE has reached the top of the Billboard charts just two years after its debut. It is the first time since the group debuted in 2024 that KATSEYE has taken No. 1 on the main album chart, Billboard 200. The achievement is drawing even more attention because the group was discovered and developed by HYBE and Geffen Records based on a K-pop methodology.
In a chart preview article released by Billboard on the 23rd local time, KATSEYE's third mini album, Wild, which was released on the 14th, recorded a total of 170,000 album units in the U.S. during the tracking period from August 14 to 20. Of that total, pure album sales reached 145,000, streaming equivalent albums (SEA) totaled 24,500, and track equivalent albums (TEA) came to about 500.
This is the highest weekly result ever recorded by a female group since Billboard 200 adopted the album-unit system in December 2015. It also makes KATSEYE the fourth female group to reach No. 1 on the chart since 2020, following BLACKPINK's BORN PINK in 2022, NewJeans' Get Up in 2023, and TWICE's With YOU-th in 2024.
KATSEYE was formed through the global audition project Next New Creator, which drew 120,000 applicants from around the world. The participants' training and mission performances were shared through YouTube and Weverse, and fans from around the world took part in selecting the debut members through voting.
Since its debut, KATSEYE has continued to gain momentum. The group was nominated for Best New Artist and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 68th Grammy Awards, and at the 2026 American Music Awards, it won three awards, including New Artist of the Year.
In the first half of this year, the group was recognized as a key intellectual property that helped drive HYBE's album and digital music performance, along with BTS and CORTIS. It is being seen as a successful example of HYBE's Multi-home, Multi-genre strategy, which aims to localize the K-pop production system and produce global artists rooted in each region, in the world's largest music market.
[email protected] Shin Jin-a Reporter